In an instant, I caught myself scanning the bottom of the page looking for a time indicator that would tell me how much ‘reading time’ I had left in the chapter. I felt silly.

Can’t find my reading progress indicator on this ‘printed’ thing…

I have become so accustomed to reading using my Kindle Paperwhite ereader that I have developed new habits that influence how I read.

How to build habit forming products?

What Amazon, since I own a Kindle, has done in my case is change the way that I approach reading. Amazon built a product that changed my reading habit.

No longer do I simply pick up a book and read. In my personal situation I double check the time I have available to read against the time remaining in a chapter… and then decide to read. Maybe it is a form of ‘Readers-OCD’, who knows, but I like to read from chapter to chapter.

Time left indicator

The ‘time left’ indicator at the bottom of the indicator has replaced my need for a page number. Since the indicator is adjusted according to my actual reading speed it is my best indicator and keeps me motivated to not slip behind my ‘speed-reading’ curve so to speak. Reading the printed book I noticed that this pressure disappeared and I was more easily distracted.

Nir Eyal… Captain ‘Hooked’?

Nir Eyal, former Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he taught the “Using Neuroscience to Influence Human Behavior” course, and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design teacher, knows all to well how to do this.

In his book ‘Hooked’ Nir Eyal introduces readers to the “Hook Model,” a four steps process companies use to build customer habits. Through consecutive hook cycles, successful products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back repeatedly without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.

Reviews for Nir Eyal’s book are flattering to say the least:

Nir’s work is an essential crib sheet for any startup looking to understand user psychology.

I almost passed on this book because it felt uncool to try and “hook” people through manipulation. But Nir does a great job addressing the ethics and being a proponent of developing products that have meaning for the developers and materially improve the lives of users.

From book to Udemy course

Just like Nathalie Nahai, after publishing a book, going on a speaking tour, you then publish an online course over at Udemy… and so did Nir Eyal.

In this course, Nir shares a framework for designing habit-forming products called “the Hook Model” which he also discusses in his book ‘Hooked’.

The framework gives entrepreneurs and product designers a new way for thinking of the necessary components of influencing user behavior. Nir shares the tactics companies like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter use to drive repeat engagement, successfully.

Matthew works as Conversion Optimisation Manager at Ziggo BV. In his free time he enjoys family life as well as digging into online user research material whilst frequently generating some of his own, which he freely shares here on actualinsights.com.